Let’s take a break from grammar and say something about spelling. In Greek there are some words that have the same pronunciation, but we write them differently. Of course they have different meaning ‘cause they are different words. They haven’t any connection between them. I like these words so much!!! I’m not sure if I wrote them all, I wrote what I remember.

*I don’t know the noun, so I wrote the verb, but the Greek word is noun.
**These two words have the same pronunciation and spelling, but different meaning.
***Crete is a Greek island in south Greece. In fact is the biggest island of Greece.

A syllable is part of word and comprises a single vowel or diphthong which may be accompanied by one or more consonants: ό-χι, αη-δό-νι, αρ-πά-χτη-καν, καη-μέ-νος.
For the purposes of syllabification, vowel digraphs and spurious diphthongs count as single vowels: αί-μα, ναύ-της, ά-πια-στος, α-μυα-λιά, για-γιά, γυα-λιά.
In normal speech, spurious diphthongs do not occur after two consonants of which the second is ρ. In these cases the two vowels may be treated as separate syllables: ά-γρι-ος, για-τρει-ά, μα-κρι-ά, χρει-ά-ζο-μαι.
Depending on the number of syllables it has, a word is called:
a) monosyllable, when it consists of a single syllable:ναι, μια
b) disyllable, when it consists of two syllables: παί-ζω
c) trisyllable, when it consists of three syllables: πα-τέ-ρας, τρα-γού-δι
d) polysyllable when it consists of more than three syllables: α-νυ-πό-φο-ρος, α-κρι-βο-θώ-ρη-τος
When a word has two or more syllables, the last syllable is called the final syllable, the second last the penultimate, the third last the antepenultimate and the fourth last is known as the syllable preceding the antepenultimate. The first syllable of a word is called the initial syllable.
In the writing, it is often necessary to start a new line before finishing a word. The word must then be split into parts. But the break cannot be made just anywhere. It can only be made at the point where one syllable ends and the next syllable starts. The division of a word into syllables is called syllabification.
The rules for syllabification are:
1) A consonant between two vowels forms a syllable with the second vowel: έ-χω, κα-λο-σύ-νε-ψε.
2) Two consonants between two vowels form a syllable with the second vowel if a Greek word start with two consonants: λά-σπη (σπίθα, σπέρνω), έ-βγαλα (βγαίνω), κο-φτερός (φτερό, φτωχός), έ-θνος (θνητός), έ-τσι (τσαγκάρης), τζί-τζικας (τζάμι, τζάκι), ύπο-πτος (πτώμα, πτώση), Αι-σχύλος (σχολείο, σχέδιο), ά-φθονος (φθόνος, φθορά).
Otherwise the two consonants are separated: θάρ-ρος, άλ-λο, περ-πατώ, ερ-χομός, δάφ-νη, βαθ-μός.
3) Three or more consonants between two vowels form a syllable with the second vowel if a Greek word can start with at least the first two consonants: ά-στρο (στρώνω), σφυρί-χτρα (χτένι), αι-σχρός (σχήμα).
Otherwise the consonants are separated and the first forms a syllable with the preceding vowel: αμ-βροσία, άν-θρωπος, εκ-στρατεία, παν-στρατιά.
4) Τhe digraphs μπ, ντ, γκ are not divided in syllabification: μπου-μπούκι, α-μπέλι, ντα-ντά, πέ-ντε, μπα-γκέτα, μου-γκρίζω.
5) Vowel digraphs, diphthongs, spurious diphthongs and combinations αυ, ευ count in syllabification as single vowels: αί-μα, νε-ράι-δα, ά-πια-στος, ναύ-της.
The same rules usually apply also to compound words.

I want to ask sth. I know that every name in greek has an article but are these articles grammatical or arbitrary like in german? When I started learning greek, I felt horrible because of these articles. I'm afraid of their being arbitrary as german.

Ι see. Yes we can understand which is masculine, femenine or neutral from the endings and the articles. To tell the truth, it's difficult to learn which is masculine, femenine and neutral. Here in Greece I hear many foreign people who learn greek to make mistakes with this. But don't worry greeks too make mistakes. For example, the very common mistake that greeks make is that they believe that the word psifos is masculine cause it ends in -os, but in reality is feminine. I get really angry when I hear o psifos and not the correct i psifos...

I think Greek is a difficult language. Even greeks make mistakes you told. How can I understand a name's gender if there isn't article near it? This worries me. Which ending letters make me decide the gender of the name? I think it's a long story to tell, isn't it?

Hello from Romania

My name is Oana, I'm from Romania and I'm new around. I love Greece, greek music and I want to thank you all for everything you do to help us learning greek. I found most of the songs, lyrics and translations I was looking for and now I'm attending the lessons Marie is teaching. Thank you again. Greece is like paradise to me. Bye.

I think Greek is a difficult language. Even greeks make mistakes you told. How can I understand a name's gender if there isn't article near it? This worries me. Which ending letters make me decide the gender of the name? I think it's a long story to tell, isn't it?

never mind the difficulties, every word is a song it's a beautiful language.

My name is Oana, I'm from Romania and I'm new around. I love Greece, greek music and I want to thank you all for everything you do to help us learning greek. I found most of the songs, lyrics and translations I was looking for and now I'm attending the lessons Marie is teaching. Thank you again. Greece is like paradise to me. Bye.

Thank you! We are still at the beginning here and I must say many other things. At least I'll try cause it's difficult to explain them to foreign people. I hope that I help you with my expanations

No don't go out of your schedule please. "That article thing" is a trouble for me because my language doesn't have that kind of thing! So, I am unfamiliar. Go on your schedule, I will wait. I'm dealing with verbs and sentence structures for now. (By looking over the song lyrics of course! ]

*Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises-----

No don't go out of your schedule please. "That article thing" is a trouble for me because my language doesn't have that kind of thing! So, I am unfamiliar. Go on your schedule, I will wait. I'm dealing with verbs and sentence structures for now. (By looking over the song lyrics of course! ]

Haha, you like the difficult ones. You're going always to the deep sea...

Verbs come last to my list. You must learn first other things. Anyway. I'll try to put new stuff today. I just need to finish what I've begun to write and I'll post it. It's about accentuation and monotonic system